Thanks to the show "Jonathan Creek," I became a fan of Caroline Quentin. She stars in "Blue Murder," a British series about a DCI Janine Lewis (Quentin) as she works police cases and deals with her chaotic private life as not only a single mom, but the mother of a new baby.
The series begins when she's pregnant with her last child, and her husband Pete (Joe Tucker) has already taken off with another woman, though he and Janine haven't actually gotten a divorce. Fortunately, at least for the first years of the series, Tom is around to babysit. In the last year he and his wife move to Spain.
Janine's team consists of Ian Kelsey (Richard Mayne), with whom she has an on again/off again relationship, DS Butchers (Paul Laughlin) and DS Shap (Nicholas Murchie), all of whom create very full characters and make a good ensemble. The cases are interesting and make for good drama.
I don't think the ensemble work comes anywhere near "NCIS" or "The Closer" but over time, we get to know the team. The team doesn't have the humor and the characters don't have the individual focus of the above-mentioned shows; the emphasis is very much on its star, her family, and to a lesser extent Ian.
Really enjoyable and well-acted; sorry this didn't go longer, but what there was, was very good.
